Copyrighting.

Davey Gaga

Davey Gaga

Under you like a G.U.Y.
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So my band and I are getting into the swing of recording songs now and we've been advised to copyright everything that's official. We've been looking into means of copyrighting material and the guitarist from another local band has offered us some advice:

daaave. :-* // i'm only here to see how the story unfolds. any self-respecting leading man would do the same. says (14:43):
we want to get them all copyrighted as well *-) not to say yer a wee thievin cunt likes but just to be on the safe side we're tryin no to let them get too far right now :L
marigold.(#) says (14:44):
copyright = send a cd in the post, with the front page of todays paper, to urself
daaave. :-* // i'm only here to see how the story unfolds. any self-respecting leading man would do the same. says (14:44):
S: wtf? pmsl
marigold.(#) says (14:45):
yupyup
marigold.(#) says (14:45):
send it recorded delivery and dont open it
marigold.(#) says (14:45):
tht way, if any1 tries to say the song is urs, u have proof thtat its ur
daaave. :-* // i'm only here to see how the story unfolds. any self-respecting leading man would do the same. says (14:47):
as in, legally copyrighted an' shit? all thieves will be prosecuted and the likes? :wacky:
marigold.(#) says (14:47):
yepyep
marigold.(#) says (14:48):
easiest and cheapest way to copyright stuff
marigold.(#) says (14:48):
u cud of course join prs online
marigold.(#) says (14:48):
which will cost u £400 (100 for each band member)
marigold.(#) says (14:48):
or put ur cd in a bank vault (pricey)
marigold.(#) says (14:48):
basically all u need to do is show tht u had it first, hence the front page of paper and the recorded delivery
marigold.(#) says (14:48):
as long as tht envelope is never opened ur songs are copyrighted
marigold.(#) says (14:49):
but, in all honesty, the amount of bands online these days, no1 wud even bother stealing

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How effective is this method of copyrighting? :wacky:
 
hahaha thats a quality way of doing it!

I would never of thought of doing that, Id of ended up paying some twat hundreds of pounds - not that I have anything to copywrite mind, but that's beside the point
 
Mailing a CD to yourself is a perfectly legitimate way of copyrighting your stuff, as it provides the date from the post office, however in a copyright court battle having your stuff registered with a sort of agency holds just a little bit more weight. It means you are serious about your work, making things more in your favour should anyone try to claim rights to your work. By all means post your stuff to yourself as an immediate fix, but in the longterm register it too. Some places aren't that expensive, online ones can be great pricewise and you can just upload songs as mp3 making it fast.
 
Miss Valentine said:
Mailing a CD to yourself is a perfectly legitimate way of copyrighting your stuff, as it provides the date from the post office, however in a copyright court battle having your stuff registered with a sort of agency holds just a little bit more weight. It means you are serious about your work, making things more in your favour should anyone try to claim rights to your work. By all means post your stuff to yourself as an immediate fix, but in the longterm register it too. Some places aren't that expensive, online ones can be great pricewise and you can just upload songs as mp3 making it fast.
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Aye, cheers! :D I'm definitely gonny pass that on to the rest of the band. In fact, one of them's here right now and he's nodding away so there we go.
 
I can't see that holding up very well tbh, since you could easily have just put the CD in any envelope with the newspaper at any time. Of course, that's only in a proper legal case. It should do you fine any other day of the week.
 
i did a module on copyright law at uni and while that method of copyright will work if someone is intent enough on stealing your material they will also be clever enough to render it inneffective enough to cost you even more money in the long run over court battles etc...
As is said above it doesn't cost a great amount to get lyrics and melodies copyrighted and it adds the definite knowledge that no one will ever be able to contest it.
 
Hah, sod copyrighting, it's a waste of bloody money Davey boy.

But I suppose you and I differ in our opinions, we haven't copyrighted our stuff because we're pretty much a guerilla band, we come up with new stuff every practice, and we'll play gigs wherever we want, and couldn't careless about money etc because it's just fun, and enjoying ourselves. If some asshat is gonna steal our songs nout we can do about it, but doubt they'll get any money from any of our stuff.

Fact is, until you release an actual album, and you get sales, it really is not worth copyrighting it. Firstly you may think it's good music, others may think it's shit and not worth stealing to begin with(as is the case with us) As I say us lot down here aren't in it to get sales, as soon we record an album/EP we're giving it away for free, good old fashioned do it yourself style, it's the way it should be, so we're not concerned with copyright, but if you want to make some money from it, wait a bit.

I suggest waiting until you sell albums to copyright it, otherwise it could be a waste of money
 
Finnegan III said:
Hah, sod copyrighting, it's a waste of bloody money Davey boy.


I suggest waiting until you sell albums to copyright it, otherwise it could be a waste of money
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If you are good enough to sell albums then waiting until you are in a positions to do so to copyright material could be waiting too long. Just think realistically if you honestly think you could sell the material you are writing then its best to get it copyrighted otherwise anyone who hears your band could just take it for themselves and theres fuck all you can do about it.
 
If you are really serious about your work, and think you'll actually get somewhere, and actually plan to sell your music, put up a website or anything of the kind then it is always a good idea to copyright your work.

Remember that if anyone steals your work or any part of your work before you copyright it, and they decide to copyright it themselves, they can actually take legal action against you and claim you stole it. But I don't think you have to worry unless you do plan on selling your music, or making it more available to public
 
Kai, anything you make is instantly copyrighted by yourself. No one can "steal" that copyright.

They can CLAIM to have done it first, which they would have to prove in court.

It's very rare that someone will "steal" your song, simply because literally EVERYTHING you do that you think is unique, someone, somewhere will have done before.

As long as they can show somsone done it before you did, your claim is out of the window, and in the case of music, that covers more or less everything.

You wouldnt even need to send a CD, if you just mail yourself, by recorded delivery, your muic sheets and lyrics, that would hold up under most circumstances, probably more so than the actual music.
 
Decado said:
Kai, anything you make is instantly copyrighted by yourself. No one can "steal" that copyright.
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That's only partial true, and only affects countries under the Berne Conventions which does include most countries, but by doing it that way, two authors may own copyright on two substantially identical works, if it is determined that the duplication was coincidental. The only way to really prevent the other party from publishing their work if they can prove it was coincidental, you have to register for copyright.

and also if you do take them to court

the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights. However, while registration isn't needed to exercise copyright, in jurisdictions where the laws provide for registration, it serves as evidence of a valid copyright and enables the copyright holder to seek statutory damages and attorney's fees.
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Supreme Kai said:
That's only partial true, and only affects countries under the Berne Conventions which does include most countries, but by doing it that way, two authors may own copyright on two substantially identical works, if it is determined that the duplication was coincidental. The only way to really prevent the other party from publishing their work if they can prove it was coincidental, you have to register for copyright.

and also if you do take them to court
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Dead right...... Decado purely making the music is not enough in itself to fully protect your music or even infact copyright it. While it is true that all music is somehow linked to something else (purely because of limitations in chord structures and sequences) it there are so many variations of lyrical content, pitch, tempo etc that to write a song that is exactly the same as something else is nigh on impossible.
 
Cube, i suggest you check again... Any music which is recorded is instantly copyright of the recording artists. The only grey areas lie when someone else tries to "claim" that they copyrighted it first, through various means (as discussed above_

From my understanding, the worry wasn't someone else stealing the entire *song* but parts of it which the band believed to be unique. The point i was making was that those things will likely have been done by someone, somewhere, before making copyright of them more or less impossible.

Not sure where in my post you got the idea i was saying that songs could be exactly alike :)
 
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